But he had no regrets, did not wish that it hadn’t happened. He merely wished it had been someone other than Kristin. It was difficult enough for him that they lived in the same region.
Arngjerd came in to ask for a key. Ramborg didn’t think she had gotten it back after her husband had used it.
There was less and less order to the housekeeping on the manor. Simon remembered giving the key back to his wife; that was before he journeyed south.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll find it,” said Arngjerd.
She had such a nice smile and wise eyes. She wasn’t truly ugly either, thought her father. And her hair was lovely when she wore it loose, so thick and blond, for holy days and feasts.
The daughter of Erlend’s paramour had been pretty enough, and nothing but trouble had come of it.
But Erlend had had that daughter with a fair and highborn woman. Erlend had probably never even glanced at a woman like Arngjerd’s mother. He had sauntered jauntily through the world, and beautiful, proud women and maidens had lined up to offer him love and adventure.
Simon’s only sin of that kind—and he didn’t count the boyish pranks when he was at the king’s court—might have had a little more grandeur to it when he finally decided to betray his good and worthy wife. And he hadn’t paid her any more heed, that Jorunn; he couldn’t even remember how it happened that he first came too near the maid. He had been out carousing with friends and acquaintances a good deal that winter, and when he came home to his wife’s estate, Jorunn would always be waiting there, to see that he got into bed without causing any accidents with the hearth.
It had been no more splendid an adventure than that.
He had deserved even less that the child should turn out so well and bring him such joy. But he shouldn’t dwell on such thoughts now, when he was supposed to be thinking about his confession.
It was drizzling when Simon walked home from Romundgaard in the dark. He cut across the fields. In the last faint glimmer of daylight the stubble shone pale and wet. Over by the old bathhouse wall something small and white lay shining on the slope. Simon went over to have a look. It was the pieces of the French bowl that had been broken in the spring; the children had set a table made from a board placed across two stones. Simon struck at it with his axe and it toppled over.
He regretted his action at once, but he didn’t like being reminded of that evening.
As if to make amends for the fact that he had kept silent about a sin, he had talked to Sira Eirik about his dreams. It was also because he needed to ease his heart—at least from that. He had been ready to leave when it suddenly occurred to him that he needed to talk about it. And this old, half-blind priest had been his spiritual father for more than twelve years.
So he went back and knelt again before Sira Eirik.
The priest sat motionless until Simon had finished talking. Then he spoke, his powerful voice now sounding old and veiled from inside the eternal twilight: It was not a sin. Every limb of the struggling church had to be tested in battle with the Fiend; that’s why God allowed the Devil to seek out a man with many kinds of temptations. As long as the man did not cast aside his weapons, as long as he refused to forsake the Lord’s banner or, fully alert and aware, refused to surrender to the visions with which the impure spirit was trying to bewitch him, then the sinful impulses were not a sin.
“No!” cried Simon, ashamed at the sound of his own voice.
He had never surrendered. He was tormented, tormented, tormented by them. Whenever he woke up from these sinful dreams, he felt as if he himself had been violated in his sleep.
Two horses were tied to the fence when he entered the courtyard. It was Soten, who belonged to Erlend Nikulauss?n, and Kristin’s horse. He called for the stableboy. Why hadn’t they been led inside? Because the visitors had said it wasn’t necessary, replied the boy sullenly.
He was a young lad who had taken a position with Simon now that he was home; before, he had served at Dyfrin. There everything was supposed to be done according to courtly custom; that’s what Helga had demanded. But if this fool Sigurd thought he could grumble at his master here at Formo because Simon preferred to jest and banter with his men and didn’t mind a bold reply from a servant, then the Devil would . . . Simon was about to scold the boy roundly, but he refrained; he had just come from confession after all. Jon Daalk would have to take the newcomer in hand and teach him that good peasant customs were just as acceptable as the refined ways at Dyfrin.
He merely asked in a relatively calm voice whether Sigurd was fresh out of the mountains this year and told him to put the horses inside. But he was angry.